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Markish, Peretz [Perets] : PYESN [VOL VI OF GEZAMELTE VERK]

Moskve [Moscow]: Emes, 1933

1st Edition. Original printed cloth, Small 8vo, 283 pages; 20 cm. In Yiddish. Title translates as, "Plays." SUBJECT(S): Yiddish drama. Peretz Davidovich Markish (1895-1952) was a “Soviet/Russian Jewish poet and playwright who wrote predominantly in Yiddish.... His first poetry collection, Shveln ('Thresholds'), published in Kiev in 1919, established his reputation….In the early 1920s, he was a member of the Kiev group of Yiddish poets that included David Hofstein and Leib Kvitko. After a series of pogroms took place in Ukraine, he moved to Warsaw and in Western Europe. ….In 1924 he was a co-founder and editor of the Literarishe bleter in Warsaw. In 1926, Markish returned to the Soviet Union. There he published a number of optimistic poems glorifying the communist regime, including Mayn dor ('My Generation'; 1927) and the epic Brider ('Brothers'; 1929). His novel Dor oys, dor ayn ('Generation After Generation'; 1929), about the genesis of revolution in a small Jewish town, was condemned for 'Jewish chauvinism.' As a co-founder of the Soviet School of Writers he was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1939. Markish joined the Soviet Communist party in early 1942 when he took a job at the International Division of Sovietinformburo, while a colleague Teumin was the press agent. The bureau head Lozovsky banned them from any further contact with JAC; effectively cutting them off from the international socialist element altogether. The monitors started looking through their post, investigating the articles they wrote. In April 1942, Stalin had ordered the formation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee designed to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany, particularly from the West….In 1946, he was awarded the Stalin Prize, and wrote several paeans to Joseph Stalin, including a 20,000-line epic poem Milkhome (‘War’) in 1948. However, Stalin soon changed policy towards the liquidation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and against the remnants of official Jewish cultural activity in the Soviet Union…..Markish was accused of being a ‘Jewish nationalist’, and arrested in January 1949, and shot with other Jewish writers during the Night of the Murdered Poets in August 1952. After Stalin's death, Markish's widow Esther and his sons, literary scholar Shimon Markish and prose writer David Markish, actively set out to redeem his memory" (Wikipedia). OCLC: 19304548. OCLC lists 6 copies worldwide (NYPL, YIVO, Harvard, UT-Austin, UCL, NYBC) with no listings for the complete Gezamelte Verk set anywhere. Light staining and wear to boards and spine, unobtrusive pen marks to half title and blank end page, bookplate, some foxing. About Very Good- Condition. A nice copy of this scarce and important Soviet imprint, the first appearance of this collection. (yid-42-16A-ELXCC)

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